Physicists Discover How To Teleport Energy

MikeChino writes "A physicist at Tohoku University in Japan has figured out how to teleport energy from one point in the universe to another. The technique is based upon prior research that shows it's possible to teleport information from one location to another, and involves making a measurement on each [of] an entangled pair of particles. The measurement on the first particle injects quantum energy into the system, and then by carefully choosing the measurement to do so on the second particle, it is possible to extract the original energy. Heady stuff, but essentially it means that you can inject energy at one point in the universe and extract it from somewhere else without changing the energy of the system as a whole."

Comments

Consistent Histories?

[slifox]

How would an experiment like this be interpreted using the consistent histories theory?

For a classic entanglement "teleportation" scenario where a measurement on one particle could cause information to be "teleported" to the state of the other particle, I think the consistent histories interpretation of quantum mechanics says that the second particle was always in the same state until it was measured, and that no information was exchanged.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistent_histories

On another note, is there a way to test if this is correct?
Are there direct practical applications for this, if it is correct?

Re:Consistent Histories?

[PIBM]

Just wait until there is ..

no more powerline!

That would clean up a lot of space :)

Re:Consistent Histories?

[Normal Dan]

A lot of this has to do with what we call cause and effect and other terminology being used. Reading one side of the quantum pair 'causes' the other side to be of a certain outcome. It doesn't really mean anything spooky or mystical or faster than light is 'really' happening (for some values of reality).

Here's a different way to think about what's going on. Suppose you have some device that fires bowling balls in opposing directions, you're just not sure what direction they will go. So, on one side, you have something large that will be hit by the bowling ball... when this is hit you now know where the other ball will be, so now you know exactly where to set up an apparatus to catch the other bowling ball and convert its energy into something usable.

Remember, this is just an analogy to help you think of it in a different way. There's a lot more to what's going on than this.

Re:Consistent Histories?

[MJMullinII]

The article says that the prior research worked by transmitting the information separately, at the speed of light. So the idea here is apparently that the energy itself can be transmitted instantly, but you can't actually transmit information this way. Just energy.

I'm having trouble with the difference (energy level + time factor = digital information) and that's without getting into the idea that matter basically = energy + information, but I guess that it's the measurement that differentiates them. However, unless I'm horribly mistaken, and I probably am, you could have two sync'd clocks and make repeated measurements of the energy being teleported, and use that for instant information transfer.

There, I fixed those pesky space travel comms and control delays for you.

That's almost infinitely valuable in itself. Imagine being able to instantaneously keep contact with spacecraft, regardless of how far they travel from earth. They're have been theoretical designs for over thirty years for Nuclear Powered unmanned missions to Alpha Centauri, Bearnard's Star (unsure about spelling there), and others. The main drag on spending the enormous amounts of money on such missions is that while everyone pretty much understands it will take a long time getting their (I seem to remember the project going to Bearnard's Star taking something like 40 or so years), but that the information gained from traveling to such places would take an equal time getting back.

I mean, we've done long-term space missions, even if "long-term" wasn't the original intention (I'm speaking of the Voyager Probes, etc.) So that's not completely foreign too us, but no one is going to put the effort into doing real science that far out without the instant gratification of collecting data all along the way.

Lets (for the moment) leave out the Star Trek, "transporting humans and people all around the galaxy", etc. I can see plenty of real world applications for this type of technology right now.

Imagine developing "androids" that, while human in appearance and capability, weren't artificially controlled...

By the way, I have NOT seen Avatar (and have no real interest in doing so) so if my following scenario is in any way close to what they were doing in that movie -- I'm basing this on the trailers I've scene -- please no smartass comments to that point, thank you

but were instead "inhabited" by real humans in shifts (normal, 8 hour work shifts, etc.) Imagine building spacecraft that were capable of traveling much faster than humans themselves were capable of surviving (in craft that while economical, weren't specifically built to be "human-rated") and that could be sent on long term missions through deep-space. RIGHT NOW we can build spacecraft that could leave our solar system and arrive at distant stars in our lifetime, the problem is that there is no way to keep people alive on those spacecraft (at least not in any way that doesn't lead to them being drooling idiots by the time they arrive -- no offense intended to any drooling idiots reading :)).

If you can maintain instantaneous communication with the craft regardless of how faraway it travels, you could keep a crew of "people-droids" permanently manned with people in simulators right here on Earth. As long as the ships power-supply holds out (something easily done with current technology), the droids can be continuously used to represent people doing science on the ship (not to mention repairing the ship when need-be, etc.) Basically I'm talking about being able to begin exploring the galaxy without needing fictional artificial intelligence or superhuman survival skills (which, considering how far away we still are from the world of Aurthur C. Clarke's "2001" & "2010", imagine how much farther we are from computers that have human-levels of adaptation and human-levels of endurance -- which make

Re:Consistent Histories?

[InfiniteLoopCounter]

So the idea here is apparently that the energy itself can be transmitted instantly, but you can't actually transmit information this way. Just energy.

No, energy can't be transmitted instantly... you apparently still need the classical channel in order to know what measurement to perform in the receiving end, just like in good old quantum teleportation.

Yes. However, that is for one measurement. To really know what speed you are limited to before you can get surplus energy out on one end (eaten on the other of course), you also need to know how many possibilities there are for measurement, and how much energy you would lose in measuring the "wrong" variable.

For instance, you could set up, say 100 such entanglements in parallel and then measure at random whether some spin is up or down at some time of some particle or whatever would be necessary at random. Chances maybe good that you get the extra energy out on, say 2 of these 10 measurements and end up coming out on top. If this were possible, you might be able to beat the classical channel speed limit all together (albeit with somewhat diminished output) over large distances.

Wow....

[Cheerio Boy]

If you can inject enough energy into the process this could in theory be the replacement for batteries. This is provided you could make a giant transmitter that sends to the receiving devices. (Or possibly battery replacement modules?)

This is provided the technology isn't only "ten years away" or so. ;-)

Life Imitates Video Games

[TyIzaeL]

If I recall, in Mass Effect 2 they used entangled particles for instantaneous long-distance transmission across the galaxy!

Hmm

[dissy]

Wait a sec...

Isn't how things started in The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect got started off?

*fear*

Re:Just a theoretical preprint, premature to plug

[HeronBlademaster]

note "classical communication" (i.e. a telephone call from one place to another) to tell the recipient what to do to extract the energy is needed.

Yeah, but that doesn't make it useless. For example, imagine your television came with an entangled remote control, and it communciates the necessary information "classically" with one of any available low-power wireless transmission methods. The remote can then use whatever power it needs through its "entanglement battery". There you go, a remote control that never needs new batteries.

I'm just extrapolating, assuming that you actually can "teleport" useful amounts of energy wirelessly through this process, so I have no idea whether it would actually work, but the need to communicate information through classical channels does not mean the whole concept is worthless.

Think Bigger

[jovetoo]

How about a few thousand solar satellites in orbit around the sun, transmitting energy directly to power stations on earth where the energy gets redistributed?

How about no more batteries?

Driving cars that get their energy straight from the sun?

Cellphones that do not just get their energy through an entangled pair, but also their 'net connection?

Or why not just dump one of those entangled particles into the sun? Or, if we're feeling particularly paranoid, into a neighboring star?